Free Republic

The Donald doesn’t think much of Mitt or Jeb. Donald Trump came out guns blazing at a high-profile GOP event in Iowa on Saturday — blasting possible presidential contenders Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush. “It can’t be Mitt, because Mitt ran and failed. He failed,” Trump bellowed, drawing cheers from the riled-up audience at the Freedom Summit. “He choked. He had that election won.” Trump was equally blunt in assessing former President George W. Bush’s younger brother. “You can’t have Bush,” Trump said. “The last thing we need is another Bush.”

The NFL is upping the stakes in its probe of the New England Patriots and unleashing one of the country’s top lawyers and a high-powered investigative firm to uncover the truth behind a scandal that has cast a dark cloud over the team as they prepare for the Super Bowl. League officials broke their silence on the Deflategate scandal yesterday, announcing that high-powered white-collar crime lawyer Ted Wells will join NFL Executive Vice President Jeff Pash on the investigation into whether the Pats knowingly used under-inflated footballs in the American Football Conference championship game. “He is one of the premier...

The Harvard professor accused by the Boston Globe’s Boston.com of sending a racist email to a Chinese restaurant in a dispute over a food bill says “good journalistic practices” dictate that the website should officially retract the story. Harvard Business School professor Ben Edelman said then-deputy editor Hilary Sargent, demoted after the website said it could not verify that Edelman had written the racist email, never contacted him before posting the story. “My sense is that good journalistic practices would call for both a retraction and an admission that they didn’t follow the procedures understood to be appropriate — for...

An ambitious and controversial push to erect America's first offshore wind farm has been dealt what some call a potentially "fatal" blow after two utility companies pulled out of commitments to buy energy from the lagging operation. The $2.6 billion Cape Wind project, a private operation benefiting from millions in federal subsidies, is attempting to pioneer offshore wind energy in pursuit of an eco-friendly, sustainable energy supply. Wind turbines would be installed off the coast of Massachusetts' Cape Cod in Nantucket Sound. But Cape Wind is now in limbo after utility companies terminated huge purchase agreements. They pulled out after...

The Patriots’ run to the Super Bowl has turned into an episode of “Law & Order.” And three days into Deflategate, it is becoming increasingly clear that the “law” was broken. Now the tricky part: Figuring out the appropriate punishment. The NFL’s investigation into the Patriots using under-inflated footballs in Sunday night’s AFC Championship is still ongoing. The league has said very little about the investigation or the timetable for its conclusion. The NFL sent a letter to the Patriots on Monday informing them that the league concluded that under-inflated footballs were used on Sunday. The investigation is now centered...

Though it violates both state and federal law, Massachusetts spent tens of millions of dollars to give illegal immigrants medical care—including prescription drugs, physical therapy and dental services—through its taxpayer-funded healthcare program for low-income individuals. Tax-paying residents of the Bay State should be outraged, to say the least. The information comes straight out of a scathing report that contains the findings of an investigation conducted by Massachusetts State Auditor Suzanne Bump. It reveals that questionable or prohibited medical claims totaling $35,137,347 were reimbursed by the state’s Medicaid agency known as MassHealth. A chunk of it went to non-emergency services for...

The state is urging property owners along the Massachusetts coast to elevate their homes 1 to 3 feet to protect against storms and the threat that rising seas will bring the waters to their doorsteps. more stories like thisIt's just a recommendation - not a requirement - but the message being delivered by the new StormSmart Coasts program is a sign that many municipal and state officials are concerned about the risk global warming may bring to property owners along the 1,700-mile Massachusetts coastline. "It's scary," said Vincent J. Kalishes III, Scituate's conservation agent, who took part in planning the...

Screen grab by TurtleBoySports.comBoston reporters went to the homes of several Boston area protesters who were arrested for blocking highways on Thursday. What they found were adult children playing revolutionary while living with their rich parents. A reporter for WBZ-TV, Ken MacLeod was run off a property while seeking to interview protesters. At another he was told he was harassing the protester he was seeking to interview by ringing her apartment call box. “WBZ-TV’s Ken MacLeod went to (Mark) Schwaller’s apartment in Jamaica Plain hoping for some perspective. He didn’t get that but he did get tossed by another man...

Mayor Martin J. Walsh has fired a 25-year-old city youth worker after learning the Roxbury woman was among 11 protesters who chained themselves to 1,200-pound, concrete-filled barrels in Milton on Thursday, snarling morning rush-hour traffic and stalling at least two ambulances, the Herald has learned. As mayor, you have to make tough, difficult decisions. This is not a difficult decision,” Walsh said. “This was not based on the fact of this woman protesting. It was based on the fact of putting the public safety of other people at risk.” Nelli Ruotsalainen, a part-time youth communication specialist for the Boston Centers...

Video at link. It's worth watching. These morons can inconvenience 1000's, maybe even costing lives, but THEY feel harassed when the news comes to visit them. Good job, morons. With PR like this, you are minting new conservatives every day.

LAST WEEK Deval Patrick shed the title he had worn for eight years. This week he donned the first of what will doubtless be a batch of new titles: The commonwealth's former governor announced plans to join the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a "visiting innovation fellow" at the school's Innovation Initiative.As Patrick re-acclimates to life in the private sector, there will be plenty to keep him busy. He told Fortune magazine that he has been approached by venture firms, equity firms, and corporations. He will have his pick of speaking engagements and media appearances. And the political hive will...

If you were upset about tensions between community members and police officers across racial lines, what would be the first avenue to address these issues that came to mind? Obviously you would unload a bunch of heavy barrels, chain yourself to them and block traffic on the interstate. Protesters who said they were trying to call attention to racial oppression blocked traffic on Interstate 93 north and south of Boston Thursday morning. The actions surprised police, snarled the commute for thousands, and forced the diversion of an ambulance rushing a car crash victim to a Boston hospital, State Police said....

Good riddance! Yet... Since the 1990s, students from Mount Holyoke College, an all-women's school in Massachusetts, have staged an annual production of The Vagina Monologues. Not this year. The college is retiring the ritual over concerns that the play—penned by Eve Ensler in 1996 as a way to "celebrate the vagina" and women's sexuality—is not inclusive enough. In a school-wide email from Mount Holyoke's student-theater board, relayed by Campus Reform, student Erin Murphy explained that "at its core, the show offers an extremely narrow perspective on what it means to be a woman ... Gender is a wide and varied...

This was a terrorist attack — on the working people of Boston, by non-working blow-in drifters, losers and knuckleheads. A guy I know from my radio show was using his cellphone to record everything in East Milton Square yesterday during the worst of it. A couple of these bums were on the overpass, wearing the green caps they used to wear during Occupy. (What a coincidence!) The hippies were watching the girls down below blocking traffic coming into the city. Handcuffed to the 50-gallon drums, the gals looked like a pair of beached whales. My friend says to these two...

How many transgender students are currently enrolled at Mount Holyoke? . . . Zero. Via Campus Reform: Mount Holyoke College, an all-women’s college in Massachusetts, is retiring its annual production of the Vagina Monologues this year because the play is not inclusive of transgender students. The annual production of the play is part of a country-wide tradition to perform Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues on Valentine’s Day to raise awareness about gender-based violence and usually coincides with the V-Day campaign. The proceeds are donated to sexual assault prevention organizations or women’s rights organizations.

Protesters shut down I-93 Northbound at East Milton Square and I-93 Southbound in the Medford-Somerville area during the Thursday morning commute causing major traffic backups, according to Massachusetts State police. State Police reported that 17 people from the Medford protest were under arrest and being processed. The protest was organized by the Boston contingent of the group Black Lives Matter, according to an Associated Press report. In a statement posted Thursday morning on the group’s Facebook page, the protest was held “to ‘disrupt business as usual’ and protest police and state violence against Black people.” The protesters have been removed...

BOSTON — State police say a group of protesters has blocked a busy Boston area highway at the height of the morning commute. Police say in response they have shut down Interstate 93 north at East Milton Square south of the city, and I-93 south at Mystic Avenue north of the city. A state police spokeswoman says some protesters have chained themselves to highway barriers. The spokeswoman did not know what the people were protesting, but broadcast outlets say one person is holding a sign that reads "united against racism."

A video of car dealership employees in Westport getting into a heated argument with a local pizza delivery man over $7 has led to Internet anger and a personal apology. The video, posted on Liveleak, begins with a delivery man returning $7 in cash to the dealership that he had thought was a tip. By the end of the video, one dealership worker threatens to “put my foot in your ass” and another says he will call the delivery man’s manager and get him fired.

Authored by Jim Clifton, Gallup CEO & Chairman,The U.S. now ranks not first, not second, not third, but 12th among developed nations in terms of business startup activity. Countries such as Hungary, Denmark, Finland, New Zealand, Sweden, Israel and Italy all have higher startup rates than America does.We are behind in starting new firms per capita, and this is our single most serious economic problem. Yet it seems like a secret. You never see it mentioned in the media, nor hear from a politician that, for the first time in 35 years, American business deaths now outnumber business births.The...

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is facing a second lawsuit from business groups upset about a controversial rule they contend will unfairly speed up union elections. The business groups are challenging what they refer to as the NLRB's "ambush election" rule. The Texas chapters of the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) and National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) filed the lawsuit late Tuesday in federal court seeking to overturn the rule. "We are proud to join the legal fight against the ambush rule, which is designed to deprive employers, particularly small businesses who typically do not employ legal counsel,...